Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Kimmo Huovila wrote,


>Rolf Furuli wrote:
>>
>> Two grammarians who advocate the view about  semantic meaning are H.P.
>> Grice and M. Broman Olsen. You can disagree, but you can hardly say that it
>> is not a sound linguistic principle, and it can be falsified. You can just
>> point to a situation wher RWC ("run"), or $YR ("sing") is non-durative
>> (punctual). If you cannot do that, you should accept that durativity can be
>> classified as "semantic meaning" because there are examples where it is
>> uncancelable.
>
>Is this a little bit circular? If a punctual verb is one that cannot be
>predicated over time, and a durative verb is the converse (that may, but
>does not have to, be predicated over time), it would not definitionally
>make any sense to speak of a durative verb being punctual. Or do you
>mean something different by punctual? Could you give a constructed
>example of a sentence that would demonstrate a punctual use of 'run' or
>'sing'?
>



Dear Kimmo,

What you say above is exactly my point. it does not make sense to speak of
a durative verb being punctual. And my intention was therefore to argue for
the existence of fundamental linguistic units that can be said to represent
"semantic meaning", i.e. meaning that under no circumstances can be
canceled. Randall does not seem to accept the existence of such units. So
when we accept the elementary and fundamental principle, the question is
whether such verbs (with uncancelable meaning) do exist in reality, in
Hebrew. Grice's principle is that "semantic meanings may not be canceled
without contradiction or reinforced without redundancy." This means that
the features of the verbal system which in no context and under no
circumstances can be changed or canceled, represent semantic meaning, while
features that can be changed or canceled represent conversational pragmatic
implicature, even though they may seem to represent a uniform meaning.

 Broman Olsen (1997:17) uses an example with the word "plod". We can ask:
Are the concepts "slow" and "tired" a part of the «semantic meaning» of
"plod"? Look at the following clauses:

(1) Elsie plodded along, #but not slowly.
(2) Elsie plodded along, #slowly
(3) Margaret plodded along, although she was not tired.
(4) Margaret  plodded along; she was very tired.

Example (1) is contradictory, (2) is redundant, but (3) and (4) are normal.
This means that "slow" is a part of the semantic meaning of "plod" while
"tired" is conversational  pragmatic implicature.


The difference between stative and fientive verbs in Hebrew is very
important. But if we apply the cancelability test to stative verbs with the
question: «Is stativity a semantic property?», we find that the answer is
no. As in the case with the verb used in (5) and (6), verbs which generally
are stative may in some contexts be interpreted as fientive. This does not
mean that we should discard "stativity" as a meaningful concept, or that
the importance of it is reduced. But it means that stativity is the most
common interpretation of particular verbs, not the only interpretation.


(5) And Joshua was full (ML)) of spirit and wisdom. Deuteronomy 34:9.
(6) "and she went down to the well and (ML)) filled her jar. Genesis 24:16.


In relation to Aktionsart (or the Vendlerian categories) there are three
fundamental semantic units in Hebrew and English: dynamicity, durativity,
and telicity, but punctuality (such as "hickup", "find" etc) are not
semantic because any "punctual" verb can also have a durative
interpretation. The reverse is not true; verbs with durative Aktionsart can
not have a punctual interpretation. To show that some semantic units are
uncancelable I challenged Randall to find an event where "run" or "sing"
could have a punctual interpretation.


Regarding tense, Broman Olsen's scheme of semantic meaning is as follows:
Past tense: Reference time comes before the deictic point.
Present tense: RT coincides with C.
Future tense: RT comes after C.
This relationship is uncancellable, and it can be applied to Hebrew. If we
find one form with a particular morphology, to be a tense, its occurrences
should have a uniform pattern as to the relationship between RT and C. No
such form exists, and therefore Hebrew does not have grammaticalized tenses.


Regarding aspect, Broman Olsen's scheme for semantic meaning is as follows:
Imperfective aspect: RT intersects ET (event time) after the beginning but
before the end.
Perfective aspect: RT intersects ET at the coda.
This is uncancallable for English, and therefore we can give a uniform
interpretation of of the meaning of the combination of tense and aspect
Look at the following table:

(PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE = tenses, IMPERF, PERF = aspects)
                                .
Simple past     I walked (+PAST)
Past progressiveI was walking   (+PAST +IMPERF)
Pluperfect      I had walked    (+PAST +PERF)
Past perfect progressiveI had been walking (+PAST +IMPEERF +PERF)

Simple present  I walk  (-)
Present progressiveI am walking (+IMPERF)
(Present) perfectI have walked  (+PERF)
Present perfect progressiveI have been walking  (+IMPERF +PERF)
Future  I will walk             (+FUTURE)
Future progressiveI will be walking (+FUTURE +IMPERF)
Future perfect  I will have walked (+FUTURE +PERF)
Future perfect progressiveI will have been walking (+FUTURE +IMPERF +PERF)

In the tenses that are combined with the imperfective aspect, the coda is
not reached at RT, in the ones that are combined with th perfective aspect
(including those with both imperfective and perfective aspect) the coda is
reached.

If we apply this aspect model to Hebrew, we will discover that no single
form codes for any of the aspects, because the relationship between ET and
RT is not uniform anywhere. However, it is possible on the basis of the
semantic aspect model to see a pattern of imperfective and perfective
characteristics, and therefore I claim that the two aspects do exist,
though in a somewhat different form.

My basic point, however, is that we cannot hope to find the meaning of the
Hebrew verbal system by starting at the top, either by discourse analysis
or by the method proposed by Randall. We must, as in the natural sciences,
try to identify the smallest linguistic units and find the meaning of
thsese. then we can proceed towards the top.



Regards

Rolf


Rolf Furuli
University Of Oslo